Product Alert:
Anaconda Helps VAPs (and Their Customers) Squeeze More Profits Out of Web Sites
By Hillary Rettig

Normally, we don’t write about products in this space, but when a product is getting good buzz among the Value-Added Provider (VAP) community, we’re happy to report about it, especially if it’s a potential profit center for both large and small VAPs.. (Note: This is not a review column, as I did not try out the product personally. I did, however, check the vendor’s references, and received good reports.)

The product is Anaconda, an inexpensive ($39.95) CGI script from Anaconda! of Kingston, Massachusetts. Anaconda does just one thing, but it’s a pretty useful thing: it automates the creation of online "affiliate" bookstores.

As you probably know, the big online bookstores such as http://www.barnesandnoble.com have "affiliates programs" that let Web sites earn money by referring sales to them. Typically, an affiliate site will include a small, special-interest bookstore. Visitors click on a book they want to order, and are brought via link to the big bookstore. They place the order, and the referring affiliate site gets a commission.

There’s only one problem: building an affiliate bookstore can be a time-consuming, tedious task. Anaconda gets rid of the tedium and provides a more professional result by letting you do an automated keyword and key-phrase search of a big bookstore’s database. It then compiles the results in an attractive, well-formatted bookstore you can plug right into your site.

The process takes just "minutes," according to Anaconda’s co-founder, Adam Stanhope. He sees Anaconda as being particularly useful for small Web site developers who offer their customers inexpensive package deals. "They might offer a home page, three informational pages, two graphics, one mailing-list form, etc., for $300. With Anaconda, they can easily add a bookstore."

Stanhope adds, "Every small Web site can become a potential profit center by including a bookstore: an accountant's site can offer tax books and financial planning, a video store can offer books about Hollywood, etc. You can build a dozen bookstore ‘sections’ on your site in only a few minutes."

Anaconda also offers two more benefits:

• It returns visitors to the affiliate site after the book search. That way, the affiliate does not automatically lose their visitor to the big bookstore.

• If a visitor winds up at a big bookstore via an Anaconda link and proceeds to do a manual search, all search results are automatically identified with the associate’s code. If a purchase is made, the affiliate still receives the referral fee.